Six-Pack and Dogwelder: Hard-Travelin' Heroz

Six-Pack and Dogwelder: Hard-Travelin' Heroz (2016-2017/ Collected 2017): written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by Russ Braun with Steve Dillon and John Kalisz: From the pages of Garth Ennis and John McCrea's late and much-lamented HITMAN come... Six-Pack and Dogwelder and the other heroes of Section 8! Well, and from the pages of the earlier SECTION 8 miniseries!

Garth Ennis' hatred for superheroes other than Superman is at its most evident when he chronicles Six-Pack and Section 8, heroes with powers that range from the disgusting to the non-existent. But Six-Pack idolizes Superman and wants to do the right thing. That he may be dreaming all of this while he dies drunk and homeless and freezing in an alley is also a possibility. Or not. For once, in the pages of Hitman, Six-Pack saved the universe from an invasion of demons with his idealistic heroism. No joke!

The title riffs on the unlikely, socially relevant Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics of the early 1970's. The first issue gets Ennis' critique of socially relevant comics out of the way before plunging into the greatest mystery of the DC Universe: who is Dogwelder and why is he compelled to weld dogs to people?

Garth Ennis and sharp, pungent artist Russ Braun take the piss on superheroes past and present, from Starfire to the Flash, from the Justice League to Hellblazer. Ennis wrote a memorable run of John Constantine Hellblazer in the 1990's. Here, he brings John back to piss on DC's attempt to make Constantine more mainstream and conventionally superheroic. It's funny stuff, though really only if you're in on the joke.

DC's supernatural, God's vengeance hero The Spectre makes a memorable appearance to jumpstart the quest to discover the true nature of Dogwelder. John Constantine shows up on a very Silver-Surferesque flying board to help out and complain about what the corporate powers of DC have done to him, now that they've put him in a space helmet and given him a raygun dubbed Hellblazer.

Dogwelder will of course turn out to be from a long line of Dogwelders. Heck, this Dogwelder is the second one we've seen, the first having been blowed up during that hitherto mentioned battle with universe-ending demons. Dogwelder is dead. Long live Dogwelder! 

This is a lot of fun, though you may need some foreknowledge of DC Comics and superheroes in general to truly appreciate all the jokes. As a bittersweet bonus, the reprinted covers for the series are some of the late, great Steve (illustrator of Ennis' Hellblazer, Preacher, and Punisher work, among many other memorable moments) Dillon's work. Recommended.

A beat-off manual for closet sadists

Punisher: Bullseye (2010-2011): written by Jason Aaron; illustrated by Steve Dillon: Writer Jason Aaron takes the Punisher so far into the black in this arc that there seems to be no way back. Ditto super-assassin/serial murderer Bullseye, now a cross between the Joker and some sort of Violence Whisperer. The late, great Steve Dillon draws it all in his cool, matter-of-fact style. 

The jokiness attached to the never-more-reprehensible Bullsye steers the arc into the realm of Violence Porn. It's unpleasant, and for all the nods to Uber-Punisher scribe Garth Ennis, Aaron is no Ennis: he lacks that writer's bleak humour and ability to be violently funny without somehow making the slaughter of innocents seem like hilarious larks. 

It's sort of a vile piece of work. Wertham, thou shoulds't be living at this hour. Well, no. Kids don't read comic books any more anyway, and this one seems like a beat-off manual for the closet sadist. Not recommended.

Magicpuncher: His punches have the power of magic!

Mmmm... Cloak of Levitation

Doctor Strange: The Last Days of Magic (2016): written by Jason Aaron, James Robinson, and Gerry Duggan; illustrated by Chris Bachalo, Mike Perkins, Leonard Romero, Danilo Beyruth, Kevin Nowlan, and many others: The five-issue build-up to The Last Days of Magic was pretty good. The Last Days of Magic itself, not so much. Chris Bachalo's artwork throughout the story is nice, magicky stuff, conjuring up images of Bachalo's work on Neil Gaiman's Death miniseries in the Sandman universe. 

And I understand what Marvel and Jason Aaron are attempting in the writing of Doctor Strange. Strange has often been a great series going back to his creation by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee in the early 1960's and continuing through such great writer/artist teams as Steve Engelhart/ Frank Brunner to Roger Stern/Marshall Rogers in the early 1980's and on to Brian K. Vaughn and Marcos Martin's terrific The Oath miniseries from a few years back.

But Doctor Strange has never been a popular character, which is why he keeps getting cancelled. Aaron writes Doctor Strange as much more fallible and self-doubting than previous efforts, making him almost into a Spider-man, with magic. It doesn't work for me because it doesn't link up with previous versions of Strange. Maybe it will be popular. But between that and the gigantic ret-cons Aaron works into the narrative, I found myself reading a Doctor Strange story that didn't seem to have Doctor Strange in it. 

And at the point that Doctor Strange first thinks and then exclaims at the villain, "I'm literally punching you with magic!"... well, that was really enough to cure me of any desire to see what Aaron and Bachalo have up their sleeves for future issues of Strange. But if you always hated Doctor Strange as written by virtually everyone who has ever written Doctor Strange, maybe you'll like this revised version. For me, not recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame (1993-94/reprinted 1999): written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by Steve Dillon, Peter Snejberg, Will Simpson, Glenn Fabry, and John Totleben: DC's scabrous, Liverpudlian Sorcerer Supreme John Constantine takes a nightmarish voyage through the shadow realms of the American Hell in this volume, which would now be collected in the Rake at the Gates of Hell collection (if you're looking to buy this story in a new printing). 

Garth Ennis is suitably pissy and cynical, especially once the horrifying ghosts of Abe Lincoln and JFK come into play. Ennis' long-time artistic collaborator Steve Dillon is in fine form, rendering all the horrors in his nuanced, straightforward, mostly realistic drawing style -- the clean-ness of Dillon's rendering was always a plus on Hellblazer and with Ennis also on Preacher. The horrors of Ennis' writing always needed to be undersold visually. Three nice standalone Constantine tales supplement the Damnation's Flame arc. In all, if one finds a used or remaindered copy anywhere, Damnation's Flame could almost work as an introduction to the Constantine experience. Highly recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer: The Red Right Hand (2006-2007; collected 2007): written by Denise Mina; illustrated by Leonard Manco and Cristiano Cuchina: Novelist Denise Mina wrote 13 issues of John Constantine Hellblazer in 2006-2007. She wasn't generally well-received by Constantine fans, though I like her work. It was, however, somewhat misleading to collect her issues in two volumes (the previous volume was Empathy is the Enemy): the two volumes actually form one 12-issue, novelistic story, with one standalone fill-in issue in the middle of things. 

I like the 12-issue arc overall, but it's a John Constantine story that seems awfully padded. The concluding issues in this volume go in circles for about 60 pages before finally stumbling to an end. That the fate of the world hinges in a hilarious way on the outcome of a World Cup match involving England is probably the best moment in Mina's run. Lightly recommended.

Enigma (1993): written by Peter Milligan; illustrated by Duncan Fegredo: This wild, woolly, postmodern superhero tale from the first year of the DC Vertigo comics line's existence is a gem, albeit a somewhat padded one -- it's a tight six-issue story running at a somewhat attenuated eight issues. Duncan Fegredo's art is scratchy and scary and often intentionally confusing -- when the superhero fights comes, they're confusing and bloody, which is sort of the point. 

Peter Milligan writes an involving tale of childhood superhero fantasies and grown-up repression. And the final revelation of the narrator's identity is all sorts of funny. Enigma also seems prescient in that it deals frankly and non-stereotypically with homosexuality. In 1993! Kudos to line editor Karen Berger and DC for releasing such a book at the time. Recommended.

PREACHER. The whole goddamned thing pardner.

The Saint of Killers

Preacher: The Complete Series (1995-2000): written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by Steve Dillon, Carlos Ezquerra, Richard Case, Steve Pugh, John McCrea, and Peter Snejberg; covers by Glenn Fabry; available in ten volumes, six volumes, or three Absolute editions as well as in the original comics:

Ah, Preacher. Irish-born comics writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, with whom Ennis forged many a fine John Constantine Hellblazer story prior to Preacher's debut in 1995, gave the world a comic-book series that combined splatterpunk, Westerns, dark fantasy, low comedy, satire, social commentary, and a lot of speeches. It's super. 

And 20 years after it first appeared, Preacher still has the ability to shock and amaze. It's one of a handful of truly great, epic-length fantasy comic book narratives.

There's really no point to giving too much away about the narrative. That narrative's ability to go roaring off in various unexpected directions is one of the charms of Preacher (and perhaps the occasional frustration). The world of Preacher is a nightmarish, bloody, tragic one. 

And Dillon, along with the occasional guest artist for the Preacher mini-series and one-shots that explain things outside the main narrative, renders all the horror and grace in his clear and elegant and straightforward art. It's the right take for this sort of thing: Preacher is as straightforward and straight-shooting as its titular hero Jesse Custer.

And it's one of the marks of Ennis' ability to take the piss out of himself that late in the narrative Jesse's one true love mocks the fact that he shares his initials with Jesus Christ.

But anyway, pardner...

Jesse Custer is a conflicted preacher in the small, crappy Texas town of Annville when thing begin. Something happens to give him the power to compel anyone to do anything with the power of his voice. And when he learns the truth about God, he sets out to find God.

For God has abandoned his Throne in Heaven, apparently because He fears Jesse's newly created power. And He fears Jesse's mission: to bring God to justice for all the pains and horrors God has inflicted on his Creation.

With Jesse will be the love of his life, sharp-shooting Tulip O'Hare, whom Jesse abandoned to become a preacher five years earlier to save her life from an imminent threat. But she doesn't know that when she runs into him again, so she starts off right pissed at him.

With Jesse will also be a roguish sidekick and newly met best friend, Cassidy the nearly century-old Irish vampire. Cassidy has the strength of 50 and an addictive personality to match -- not to blood, which he's not all that happy about needing, but to whiskey and beer and cigarettes and hard drugs. He comes along because Custer gives him a new sense of purpose and a chance to be a Good Guy for once. Or does her? Well, therein lies one of the threaded plots of Preacher.

Against Jesse are the hosts of Heaven and Hell. More dangerously on Earth, there is the most powerful secret organization on Earth: the Grail, dedicated to preserving the bloodline of Christ (whose death on the cross was faked) and orchestrating a global apocalypse that will put it in charge with Christ's descendant as the world's leader. Controlled and managed entirely by the Grail, of course.

Leading the Grail forces against Jesse and company will be Herr Starr, a German-born, power-mad grotesque. And there will be other grotesques arrayed against Jesse, though it's their spiritual grotesquery that's the problem. There will be innocent grotesques and heroic grotesques as well. 

Chief among the lovable grotesques will be the young man Cassidy dubs Arseface, who has a permanently disfigured face from the plastic surgery that came after his unsuccessful suicide attempt on the day Kurt Cobain died to inspire he and his more ultimately more successfully suicidal friend to kill themselves.

And there's the mysterious Saint of Killers, a seven-foot-tall cowboy whose guns bring death to anyone and anything in the universe, and whose story is a tragic one of redemption undone and Hell unleashed. Will he be Jesse's enemy or ally in the search for God and answers?

The 70+ issues of Preacher travel America, with a brief foray to France. For the most part it's the American South, and Texas in particular. Ennis has noted that he wanted to write a modern Western with some elements of the Westerns of Clint Eastwood, but with a hero who's as much John Wayne as Eastwood. All of this wrapped up in supernatural horrors, natural horrors, human horrors, and the occasional moment of Grace, too.

Are there flaws? Sure. But when the story ends, one wants more even as one is satisfied at a good story, well-told. So far, the AMC TV adaptation of Preacher seems to have thrown away everything from the comic except the names of the characters in search of its own lesser vision. But the comic is the real stuff. Highly recommended.

Four Views of Mount Constantine

In the beginning... John Constantine by Moore, Veitch and Totleben c. 1984.

Oh, occult investigator/magician/former punk-rock musician John Constantine. Invented by Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben in the pages of Swamp Thing in the mid-1980's, he's become an eminence grise at DC Comics. His first series ran an impressive 300 issues at what became DC's adult-horror imprint Vertigo, though Constantine started before Vertigo existed. That 300-issue run had an impressive array of writers come and go over the years, along with an army of artists. 

That DC cancelled Constantine's Vertigo title to bring him back into the mainstream DC Universe continues to gall me: the two non-Vertigo Constantine series have been at best pale reflections of Constantine at his best. He looks like Sting. He probably sounds a lot like John Lennon, as they both hail from Liverpool. He fights Heaven, Hell, and assorted supernatural and human forces in between!

John Constantine Hellblazer: Son of Man (1998-99/Collected 2004): written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by John Higgins: Early 1990's Constantine scribe Garth Ennis returns for an arc with gritty artist/colourist John Higgins. Higgins' characters are stocky and brutal, befitting the story. As with many Constantine stories, it begins at the Ravenscar psychiatric facility in which Constantine spent a couple of years recuperating after the disastrous magical events in Newcastle in the early 1980's. A South London crime boss springs the young, unstable Constantine because he needs a magician to bring his five-year-old son back to life. 16 years later, an older Constantine gets pulled back into the crime boss' story again. There are repercussions to raising the dead.

Ennis, the most grotesque and splattery of all Constantine writers, brings the grue here. Higgins is an able collaborator, though he's not the world's best drawer of babies. The regrets of a misspent youth jostle for prominence with the regrets of a misspent present. The climax is comically anti-climactic, as Ennis always enjoyed taking the piss out of all of his protagonists and antagonists. But boy, the one demon we see here is surprisingly talky, given what sort of demon it turns out to be. Recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer: Good Intentions (2000-2001/ Collected 2002): written by Brian Azzarello; illustrated by Marcelo Frusin: One of a very few Americans to write Constantine's book, Brian Azzarello takes the Hellblazing magician on a tour of rural America. Marcelo Frusin's art is maybe a shade too cartoony at points for the events it depicts. It also gets cheese-cakey at an unfortunate point involving Constantine's rescue of a woman who was being kidnapped so as to be raped and killed: maybe not the time for the hot underwear shots. Overall, the story is both weird and occasionally revolting. Constantine screws up, of course, but under the circumstances, almost anyone would. Infamous at the time for strongly implying a sex act between a drugged and drunken Constantine and a dog. I kid you not. Lightly recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer: Stations of the Cross (2004/Collected 2006): written by Mike Carey; illustrated by Leonard Manco, Marcelo Frusin, Chris Brunner, and Steve Dillon: Mike Carey's lengthy run as Constantine writer concludes here with an amnesiac Constantine beset by foes human and demoniac. Even without his memory, Constantine is dangerous to foes and allies alike. The climactic story, from the double-sized 200th issue, gives us Constantine at his most vulnerable. It's a fine finish to Carey's tenure. The art works throughout, and is especially dark and evocative during Constantine's voyage into the labyrinth below the church of a malign cult. Recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer:  The Roots of Coincidence (2008/Collected 2009): written by Andy Diggle; illustrated by Leonard Manco, Giuseppe Camuncoli, and Stefano Landini: This volume ends Andy Diggle's run as Constantine writer with a recontextualization of just who Constantine's greatest enemy was and is. Diggle draws effectively on Constantine's long comic-book history for this revelation. It works, though the mechanics of John's battle with his arch-nemesis never become crystal clear. It's a solid end to a solid run of comics, though the horror elements are mostly muted this time out and one of the lesser opponents, Mako, just doesn't have a name that strikes fear into me. Lightly recommended.

Half a Global Frequency is Better Than None

Global Frequency: Planet Ablaze: written by Warren Ellis; illustrated by Garry Leach, Glenn Fabry, Steve Dillon, Roy Martinez, John J Muth, David Lloyd, and David Barron (2002-2003/ This edition 2004): This collection of the first half of writer Warren Ellis' early-oughts 12-issue miniseries gives us six different artists and the most TV-friendly of all of Ellis' comic-book projects. Indeed, Global Frequency did get a TV pilot made, though it wasn't picked up for series. That's a shame because it's a solid take on a solid, much-used concept in TV. In a way, this is Mission: Impossible for the post-industrial, post-governmental, Internet age.

And the artists are all boss. Global Frequency (the agency) employs 1001 agents across the globe, though they're really more heavily compensated consultants than actual employees. Global Frequency (the agency) is sponsored by the G-8 countries (among other sources named or implied) but run independently by a mysterious woman. Global Frequency (the comic book) shows us six missions, rendered by six great artists.

Held together by phone and Internet, members of the team await the call to either consult on a problem or to jump into the fray. They're 1001 experts in thousands of fields, from parkour (no kidding) to quantum physics to assassination. The crises they face arise from both intent and neglect -- forgotten and now-malfunctioning Cold-War super-weapons can represent as great a threat to the world as crazed death-cultists, insane bionic men, or an invading meme from outer space.

It's all fast-paced and breezy, almost Warren Ellis-lite in terms of characterization and plot density. Done right, it would have made a hell of a TV series. As a comic-book series, it's still a lot of fun. Going with different artists each issue increases that fun, whether it's Preacher's Steve Dillon, V for Vendetta's David Lloyd, or the normally painterly Jon J Muth doing something a lot more sketchy. Recommended.

Tainted Love with the King of the Vampires

John Constantine: Hellblazer: Tainted Love: written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by Steve Dillon (1993; collected 1998): Writer Garth Ennis made his name at DC with his violent, moody work on DC's horror flagship title John Constantine: Hellblazer prior to creating the popular and influential Preacher series with artist Steve Dillon.

Picking up where the Fear and Loathing storylineleft off, Tainted Love takes John Constantine about as low as he can go, homeless onto the streets of London where old enemies and new come to believe he can finally be finished off.

Constantine is in terrible emotional and physical trauma for much of this collection, in which we discover that his real super power is the ability to fight supernatural evil even while falling-down drunk. Will he pull out of it before the seemingly eternal King of the Vampires or Satan himself finally get their revenge on him? And what's going on with the archangel Gabriel? And how's former lover Kit doing back in Belfast? All will be revealed. Well, some anyway. Highly recommended.

　

Fear and Loathing in Heaven and Hell

John Constantine: Hellblazer: Fear and Loathing: written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by Steve Dillon (1992-93; collected 1997): Writer Garth Ennis made his name at DC with his violent, moody work on DC's horror flagship title John Constantine: Hellblazer prior to creating the popular and influential Preacher series with artist Steve Dillon.

Ennis is one of those writers who seems to have arrived fully formed, primarily because his early development took place in British comics that weren't readily available in North America in the early 1990's. By 1992, Ennis really was pretty much fully formed -- for good and ill (mostly good), his voice is as distinctive here as it is today.

As only the fourth person to write John Constantine (after co-creator Alan Moore and Rick Veitch in Swamp Thing and, on Constantine's own book, Jamie Delano for the first 40 issues), Ennis quickly put his stamp on the character, upping the violence and writing in a more direct, less poetic style than Moore and Delano. Constantine now seemed more of an aged punk and less of a dandyish mod -- he was straight out of Liverpool.

Ennis' peculiar and fairly rare (at least in the early 1990's) synthesis of ultraviolent splatterpunk with a detailed and increasingly harrowing portrayal of the supernatural still packs a punch in the stories collected in Fear and Loathing. The world is an awful one whether the violence is being perpetrated by monsters human or supernatural -- and even the highest of angels can be a monster in Constantine's world. Constantine works ceaselessly to thwart the plans of Heaven and Hell alike, because both Heaven and Hell seek control over the fragile, fallen human world.

In this collection, Constantine's personal life -- his rewarding relationship with Kit -- comes under fire even as he attempts to stop a British Neo-Nazi group from gaining favour with the archangel Gabriel. Constantine also celebrates his 40th birthday with a party involving most of DC's supernatural characters -- Hellblazer was still nominally part of the mainstream DC universe at this point, despite the fact that thematically this made absolutely no sense.

So we get such supernatural stalwarts as Zatanna, Swamp Thing, and the Phantom Stranger involved in a surprise birthday bash for the 40-year-old Liverpudlian (or Scouser). That issue is one of the few blessedly free of tension, and involves instead some of Ennis's funniest (and earliest) scenes taking the piss out of mainstream superhero characters. But damnation, as always, looms. Highly recommended.